Alive and Well

He’s Here…

The antichrist is alive and well on planet Earth. Today. Right now. As we speak.

Got your attention? The question you may be asking is, “What makes me say that?”

The first reason is that Jesus said, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Lk 21:34) Since Satan is an angel, he clearly cannot know when Jesus will return and thus he cannot know when the Tribulation is set to begin. If Satan knew when the Second Coming would occur he could calculate when the Tribulation begins. Since he doesn’t have that information, it is necessary that in every generation there be a “man in the wings” groomed and ready to be used as Satan’s antichrist.

The second reason is that based on the birth pains’ listed in scripture we are clearly in the end times (but not yet the Tribulation). Because we are in the end times, there absolutely must to be an adult somebody already on the world stage.

The question you may now be asking is, “Who is it?” At the time when I, too, speculated, there were several popular candidates. Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger, and Ronald Reagan were each the buzz at one time. Why them? What do they have in common? They were well known people. They had power. They had money or access to money. They could manipulate people. There was also some fancy, or perhaps fanciful, math involved.

The Bible gives us a clues on how we are to recognize the antichrist, one of those clues reads, “This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast (antichrist), for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.” (Rev 13:18) Many people thought they had the wisdom required to calculate the number and apply it to a specific person. They found a way to make the number 666 apply to each of those people but everyone was incorrect.

One of the reasons they were wrong is that the times were wrong. Yes, the world has been in the season of ‘warning signs’ for several decades but it’s only recently that  biblical scholars are in agreement about us actually being in the end times. It’s always been possible to point to one or two prophecies and say, “Ah ha!” but it’s only when we see the convergence of many signs that we can confidently look for the coming antichrist.

It’s fun to speculate, but that’s all we can do. There are several name-recognizable people on the world stage today who could fit the bill and there are undoubtedly several people we’ve not yet heard of who could step into the role. The coming antichrist must be in a position of power, but that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily a head of a government. He could easily be a civilian with trucks full of money and power and prestige. He would possess the ability to manipulate a situation and sway people into believing that, as a global dictator, he can resolve a scary, complex world-wide situation. His world view is not Christian. In fact, he is the very antithesis of Christianity. The Bible calls him, among other things, “the man of lawlessness, who will set himself up in God’s temple, claiming to be God.” (2 Thes 2:3-4)

Paul goes on to say that this man of lawlessness will be “revealed” before the coming day of the Lord; the root word for “revealed” means “to take the cover off.” So it’s more than fair to say that to start with, he will appear to be a talented and benevolent human being. Only later is he revealed as the evil antichrist.

If the antichrist is alive and well on planet Earth, so too is the False Prophet. This is the person who will draw all people into a one world religion, sort of a “we’re all in this together” quasi-spiritual leader. Paul calls this movement, “a form of religion but lacking its power.” (2 Tim 3:5). And, of course, Satan is alive and well on planet Earth; has been from Genesis through Job (1:6-7) through the gospels and epistles. He moves between Heaven and Earth accusing man continually. In the middle of the Tribulation he finally is denied access to Heaven and is thrown down to earth. (Rev 12:7-2) Although Jesus defeated him through His death and resurrection, it’s not until end of the Book of Revelation that Satan finally meets his ultimate destiny.

We will continue looking at the antichrist in upcoming blogs and will, sooner or later, also talk about the False Prophet’s and Satan’s role in the Tribulation.

Please, neither offhandedly accept nor reject what is said in this blog. Check it out. Look it up for yourself in the Bible. If you are a child of God, you are in good hands and there is the most wonderful eternity waiting for you. If you are not a Christ follower, now is a really good time to honestly explore the truth claims of the Bible.